The Spaces in Between
by Designation
Summary: He broke from the trees and sprinted out to the one rickety pier he'd seen jutting into the lake, intending as a last ditch effort to swim away from the walkers – he had no idea if they could swim, but doubted it.


**The Spaces in Between**

A/N: Many thanks and shout-outs to Praxid, whose discussion and assistance in the writing and editing of this fic was invaluable! I highly recommend her work, it's stunning and well worth a read.

* * *

He had learned to swim in much the same way he'd learned everything else in his life: through brute force, because he had to. He and Merle had gone hiking through the woods off the edge of their father's land, late in the morning on what was turning out to be a hot summer's day, bent on spending the afternoon at the river a few miles from the house.

Daryl couldn't remember how old he was at the time, but he couldn't have been ten years old – this had been during the days when he still _played_ in the woods. Before Merle had gone off to juvie, and Daryl got lost those long days. Before he finally understood what Merle used to tell him: that you respected the land like you respected your elders, because it knew more than you and could beat you senseless just as well as any fist.

This day, they'd gone into the trees in shorts and t-shirts; they weren't hunting or tracking, or exploring. They'd set out just to go for a swim, to cool off and have fun. Merle had been in a good mood, and had laughed and joked with Daryl the whole way to the river, ruffling his hair occasionally and shoving him around.

When they got there, Merle dove right in. Daryl watched his brother come to the surface and bob under again. He looked on in quiet awe as Merle did the crawl and the backstroke, diving under sometimes and floating lazily in between. Like he belonged in the water, not perching on tree branches just out of Daryl's reach, heckling him, the way Daryl suspected his brother was made to do.

No one had ever tried to teach Daryl to swim, and Merle wasn't about to. After he'd had his fill of standing waist deep in the water and watching, Daryl started to try to mimic his brother's movements. Dixons didn't belong in classrooms, getting formal instruction; they didn't go to fancy swimming lessons in the town pool. Dixons learned by doing, learned by need. Did what they had to and shut up about it.

Swimming, it turned out, wasn't something that Daryl could pick up that easily. At the time, he'd still been young and naive enough to believe that there were things in life that he would try and excel at instantly – but swimming wasn't one of them. Each time he kicked off the bottom he'd try to move his limbs like Merle, but the water would be too close around him and he'd panic and go under.

It had been a mistake to ask Merle questions, but Daryl'd been frustrated after splashing up for air for the umpteenth time. "How d'you keep afloat, anyways?" he asked, hating the upward pitch of his words, how they made him sound like a little kid.

Merle must have hated it too, because the answer had been, "By not standin' on the damn bottom," and his hand had closed around Daryl's wrist and hauled him off his feet.

"Hey!" Daryl shouted, confused. He tried to tug his hand out of the unyielding grip, but Merle did not relent. He started walking, powering his way through the water and dragging Daryl behind him, kicking and thrashing. The water was getting deeper, and it was getting harder for Daryl to keep his feet under himself while keeping his head above water. It splashed past his neck, up to his chin, and there was too much of it, spreading out around him while closing in on him, and then Merle's hands were closing around his ribcage and he heaved Daryl farther out, to where it was over his head entirely.

Daryl often looked back on that day and wondered what would have happened if he hadn't made it back in on his own. How long Merle would have watched before pulling him back. He trusted that Merle _would_ have pulled him back, eventually, and didn't wonder what it would have been like to drown.

Today, he would find out anyway.

He'd been following the river that the group had set up camp near as it widened, looking for game trails leading down to the water, when he heard a woman's scream from the woods. He'd come too far out, and it sounded too close to be coming from the group's camp. It didn't sound like one of their own, either, but he ran into the trees all the same. When he reached the knot of walkers and the screaming woman, he was too late. The woman was caught, bitten, dying, and there were too many of them.

He could see her dark hair tangled in a walker's fist as it leaned in to tear a second chunk of flesh from her neck, but he couldn't see her face. Several others were crowded around her, tearing at her flesh and each others' indiscriminately, blocking most of her from his sight. Her blood splashed and sprayed in the air around her as she screamed and struggled.

He couldn't help her, but he found his arms raising his crossbow anyway, firing into the mass of them. The nearest one to him went down, collapsing in onto the woman and the other undead swarming over her, and nobody in the entire macabre tableau took notice.

_Jesus,_ he thought, and he was sure he hadn't made a sound, but one of the walkers turned toward him anyway. It used to be a young man, tall and fit, with hair just this side of too long. Its face was covered in old blood and new, and its eyes were the same vacant misty grey as every other walker Daryl had ever seen. And like too many of the walkers in Daryl's past, it was staring at him, fixated and greedy and hungry.

As the woman gave a final gurgle and finished dying, it snarled and started to move, tripping over the feet of the others as it took its first shambling steps toward its next intended meal. The difference in its movements, its _intention_, must have alerted the others, because too soon they were all looking at Daryl.

They were fresh, as far as walkers went. Dirty, and bloody, but not very decayed. Daryl could still distinguish the original colours of their clothing, and their smell, which usually surrounded walkers like thick clouds, was slight enough to be overpowered by the coppery scent of fresh blood. All of this meant two things. Someone's camp had just been overrun, and these walkers would be fast.

Daryl turned and ran. He didn't try to watch his steps, to step lightly or respect the woods around him, just took off full tilt back toward the water. He saw more than felt a branch catch him across the right leg, stumbled, and used the moment to launch another arrow back into the thick of them. They were too close; if anything got in their way, they just plowed through it.

He broke from the trees and sprinted out to the one rickety pier he'd seen jutting into the lake, intending as a last ditch effort to swim away from the fuckers – he had no idea if they could swim, but doubted it. His pant leg was wet with blood from where he'd caught himself on the tree, and he optimistically hoped that water pressure would reduce the bleeding until he could get back ashore, safe.

He wasn't fast enough, though, and two of the walkers managed to reach him just as he reached the end of the pier. They set on him, taking him down with their clawing hands and their clumsy weight. His crossbow skittered across the pier – _no_ – and his left shoulder came down hard on one of the anchor posts, blinding pain shooting down his arm and across his torso. He had to ignore it in favour of his panicked struggle to get free from the _things_ trying to eat him.

Over the snarling and snapping sounds they made, Daryl heard a shot, too far away. And when he rolled over with one of the walkers, pushing it away from him with his good hand, and they both overbalanced and fell off the edge of the pier into the water, the next shots sounded that much farther.

The walker was undeterred by the water which suddenly closed around them. Through the rushing bubbles Daryl could see it snarling and reaching as if nothing had changed. It was the one that had noticed him first back in the woods; it's too-long hair fanning out and flowing in the water, blood and grit wisping out from its face, coming clean. The bending light from above illuminated it, allowing Daryl to see it clearly as its fingers groped across his forearm.

He curled in on himself and pushed it away with his legs, despite the sharp twinge of pain the action caused, trying to avoid its grasp and its snapping teeth. As he'd suspected, although the undead-man strained to reach him, it didn't seem to be capable of the purposeful motion required to pursue him underwater.

Five walkers had been left chasing him after he'd fired his second arrow, and another of them tumbled down into the water, crashing onto the first. Daryl had a moment to be grateful for their confusion and to wonder if they could sense his blood in the water like sharks, before he raised his arms to swim to the surface, and paralysing pain from his shoulder brought him up short.

He gasped, just a little, just enough for his body to remember that he couldn't breathe, and then he started kicking. He broke the surface to the sound of another shot.

Something snagged at his shoe, dragging him down again. He raised both arms instinctively to push himself away. His body jerked in agony at the motion and he took in more water, feeling the beginnings of panic thrill along his limbs.

Daryl coughed, sputtered, choked. Splashed, and kicked at the hand holding him. He broke free, surfaced again, only for a moment, and realized with surprise and alarm that he was _drowning_, and that fuckin' _Jaws_ was between him and the pier.

They say your life flashes before your eyes when you're about to die, but Daryl had been about to die plenty of times before this, and he knew that wasn't true. Still, he did experience one fleeting memory as he went under the water again.

He remembered swimming with Merle that day. Not the frustration of his initial failure, or Merle's hand squeezing tightly around his wrist to pull him from safety, or the realization that he was too far out to touch bottom, but rather the look in Merle's eyes when he'd swam unsteadily back in. Not pride really, or respect, just acknowledgement.

It was that look that had stopped him from wanting to hit his big brother, and kept him from sloshing out of the water and storming home. The look that said that neither of them had done any more or less than what needed doing.

He clawed for the surface with his good arm, grabbing for air like the walkers must still have been grabbing for him, needing it with a single-minded purpose like they needed to eat. Also like them, he was disoriented under the water, his body having forgotten how to work to get what it needed. His lungs strained to pull in air, spasming and fluttering, while his throat locked down to keep the water out. It was in his mouth and his nose, it stung his eyes, and there was a disturbing ringing in his ears, with that weird pressure sensation that he'd only ever felt before passing out.

There was too much water – he waved his fingers ineffectually through it, hoping to hit anything else, something hard and unyielding that he could grab onto – it spanned around him and pressed in on him, heavy and thick.

He felt like he was going to implode.

Then he didn't feel anything for awhile.

* * *

Birds were chirping in the trees, the sun shone clear and bright, and the lake stretched into the distance as smooth as glass. The heat was oppressive, but Maggie was more than used to it having grown up on a farm in rural Georgia.

They'd set up a temporary camp a ways off the highway and fairly close to West Point Lake, just north of La Grange, needing somewhere to regroup on their way to Fort Benning. The fresh water and a moment of peace were a welcome relief, and Maggie thought that the view from the shore was the most beautiful thing she'd seen in too long.

She, Glenn, and Beth had decided to accompany Lori and Carl to the rock and driftwood strewn beach to cool off, and maybe even have some fun playing in the water. Not that any of them had said that last part aloud in front of Rick. They were on a strict time table; they had to be back in an hour. Between the five of them, they carried two guns, a machete, and an axe: all of the requisite tools for a roarin' good time during the apocalypse.

Beth was in the water with Lori and Carl, her hair tied back in a half-soaked ponytail, laughing as the boy splashed at her. From her spot on the beach, seated on a sweater next to Glenn keeping watch, Maggie smiled. It'd been a long time since she'd heard her little sister laugh, and after this break it would probably be a long time before she heard it again. But today was a good day, and it was best not to dwell.

"This was a good idea," she said, and Glenn smiled at her. His black and white hat, the same one she'd smashed an egg on his head with once, shielded his eyes from the sun and cast his face half in shadow. But his smile was bright.

"I wish I could say it was mine," he replied.

He took her hand and squeezed it. This sent a familiar but rare thrill of happiness through Maggie. She was still amazed that they'd found something so unbelievably nice in all the ugliness that usually surrounded them. "You've had some pretty good ideas before," she admitted.

Glenn laughed and kissed her cheek, before turning away to look back into the woods behind them. They were on still guard, but things were alright today.

Maggie looked down the shore to the left, where a fallen tree lay half in the lake, faint ripples forming where it dipped under the water. The shoreline jutted in and out in ragged points in the distance, and a few points down she could see an old boatless pier jutting into the water. She wondered if there were many cabins nearby, and if they'd be worth checking out. If any people had come out here, to their summer homes, to escape the infected civilization.

They wouldn't stay to find out, she knew. This had probably been a temporary place even before the world had ended, somewhere where families would come for a few days at a time to escape from their lives. It would be no different for their group.

Her sunny mood faded a little, when she began to think of all the places that were temporary now. The places that would be used for all their resources by desperate, hungry people, before they were left empty of life. If they were even lucky enough to have any life set foot in them again. For Maggie, growing up as she had, peace and quiet had always been beautiful, but she knew now that noise and motion were too.

She cursed herself for thinking so when a shrill scream in the distance pierced the silence. She felt Glenn go rigid beside her, and the laughter and splashing in the water stopped. Everyone stayed still, listening, frozen.

"Was that at camp?" Lori asked, reaching for her boy's hand and pulling him toward her. Maggie shot a glance at her; she was looking back the way they'd come with a puzzled frown on her face and her hair half-matted and dripping.

Then Glenn was standing, and Maggie couldn't tell whether the second scream had made him move or if he'd already been moving when it happened. "No," he said, pulling his handgun from his waistband. "You guys go back to camp, I'll check it out."

"I'll go with you," Maggie said, snatching the second gun up from the ground and getting to her feet. Glenn made a noise of protest, but she cut him off with a determined glare. Then she looked down at the gun in her hand, thought for a short moment, and stepped away from him to dart down to the water's edge and pass it off to Lori.

Lori took it with a silent nod and ushered Carl and Beth out of the water. Perhaps they should have brought more backup with them, but Maggie trusted the fierce and protective mother to keep her little sister safe until they got back to camp.

On her way back to Glenn's side, Maggie grabbed the axe from where it lay, just below where she and Glenn had been sitting.

Glenn looked at her for a moment, perhaps searching for a way to convince her to go back with the others, before exhaling sharply and adjusting his hat. "Alright," he said, "Let's go."

They had to climb over the fallen tree that Maggie had been eyeing earlier. Then they ran down the beach, sticking to just above the water line when possible, where the rocks were small but still dry and running was easiest. The shore wound back and forth like a ribbon, occasionally narrowing to non-existence and forcing them to slosh through the water for a moment, but it was easier than rushing through the trees and better than getting lost.

The screams urged them on for a little bit, before they grew more desperate and awful and then cut off completely. Glenn came to a halt, holding his arm out to stop Maggie, and listened to the silence for a moment. In his other hand he held the gun, ready to raise and take aim.

Maggie held still for a moment, heart racing. "Shouldn't we keep going?" she prompted. "I mean, just in case?"

Glenn lowered his arm and nodded. "Gotta be quieter, though." They moved ahead, keeping on alert and trying to keep the sound of their steps down to a low crunch. The abandoned old pier grew closer in the distance, the only break in the landscape of the woods' edge and the still lake.

Walking slowly toward the now silent victim was a lot harder than running, somehow. Like before, their harsh breathing had made the silence less, and now it was oppressive and overpowering. It was because Maggie was listening hard, hoping to hear things in the woods and hoping not to at the same time, that she picked up on the rustling in the distant trees.

Glenn heard it too, and they paused again. It sounded like something was crashing through the brush, but at this distance it was hard to tell what. Glenn raised his gun.

Someone burst from the trees far up ahead, on the other side of the pier, moving fairly fast but limping. Glenn cursed and started to move, just as Maggie recognized the crossbow swinging at the figure's side and a cluster of people – _walkers_ – crashed out of the trees behind him. Some wore shorts, as if they'd gone hiking on this hot day, but none of them took care as they ran over the rocks. Some stumbled and tripped, but none of them paused, beelining for Daryl like arrows.

Glenn tried to take aim for the walkers, but they were too far away, and Daryl was between him and them. Maggie's heart leapt into her throat as Glenn started to run again, straight toward the danger the way Maggie was realizing was normal for him. She followed him, keeping close and squeezing the handle of the axe tightly in both hands.

They'd meet Daryl on the beach in a handful of moments and try to kill the dead men chasing him. Maggie couldn't help but remember the day that Rick had stumbled onto her family's farm with Carl in his arms, and she'd rode out to find his mother like a knight with a baseball bat instead of a sword. Daryl would be pissed to be the damsel in distress.

But Daryl didn't see them coming, still too far away and with his mind on other things, and instead of continuing along the shore he took off out onto the pier. The walkers were getting closer to him – she'd never seen ones so _fast_ – and there were no white knights there to intervene. They ran harder, but it felt a lot like one of those dreams where they could never run fast enough.

Daryl reached the end of the pier. For a second, Maggie thought he'd make it, but then the walkers were on him. Glenn fired a shot at them, and missed. The loud report, so nearby, made Maggie's ears ring.

Her foot caught on a rock and she stumbled a little, looking down for a moment. Glenn fired again, and the closest walker, halfway along the pier, went off the edge with a spray of blood. Two others paused and turned toward them. Another stepped off the edge of the pier, and that was when Maggie realized that Daryl was in the water, tangled up in walkers.

It took another few seconds, too long, before they reached the beginning of the pier, and it took Glenn another three shots to dispatch the two walkers left on it. They pounded out along the wooden planks, tracking footprints in walker blood on the way, and skidded to a stop at the end, searching the water.

It was frustratingly still.

Maggie barely managed to catch Glenn's arm in time to stop him from jumping in. "Wait, wait!"

Glenn turned to her, shock on his face, and yanked his arm away. "I gotta –"

Maggie pulled him back when he moved away again. "Stop, dammit!" she snapped, and he did but she'd never seen him look so angry before. She bent down quickly, put down her axe, and took her shoes off. "I'll go," she explained. "I can't lift him out, you'll have to."

She didn't give him time to protest, or give herself time to think twice, before she dove in.

* * *

Glenn had counted five walkers chasing after Daryl, and he'd killed three of them. That meant there were two in the water with him, with Maggie. She'd jumped in after them, and even now they could be close enough to get her. He thought, absurdly, of swimming in the river as a kid: of brushing against something in the water and the secret terror that always caused, because water is like a different world, and you never _know_ what lives in it.

It occurred to him, while he stood alone on the pier, that jumping into the water after two hungry undead was a rather reckless thing to do. _At_ least _two hungry undead_, his traitorous mind reminded him.

He thought of Rick, standing in the road, saying _we're all infected_, and waited to see if they were too late. Waited for Maggie to surface – please, now, and _safe_.

He didn't feel better when she came up after what seemed like too long, with Daryl's limp form clutched to her chest. She swam in as close as she could, and Glenn lay down, hanging off the edge of the pier to grab Daryl under the arms and heft him out of the water. It wasn't easy; for a moment Glenn didn't think he'd be strong enough to do it, and during that moment a thousand awful scenarios went through his head: having to just give up and let go, the walkers grabbing hold from below, Maggie screaming and going under, the body in his arms turning and –

But then Glenn gave a mighty heave and fell back onto the pier, and it wasn't a body, it was _Daryl_, and he wasn't moving or breathing but he was out of the water and they could work from there.

Maggie hauled herself out of the water as Glenn laid Daryl flat and tilted his head back to clear his airway for resuscitation. He tried to remember how long a person could go without air before brain death, and couldn't, so instead he forced himself to be certain they still had time and began chest compressions.

* * *

He was coughing up water, and his lungs were burning. He coughed and coughed, didn't feel like he'd ever get to breathing again. Everything around him was out of focus, swimming through his awareness, and his head pounded with each violent, spasming exhale.

He could hear voices – "sit him up" – but he didn't know who was speaking, and then someone was pulling at him, pulling him upright, and someone grabbed his arm and his shoulder _screamed_, and he might have yelled a little too.

Things went fuzzy again, for a moment, and when they came back he was leaning back onto someone, soaking wet and confused but wrapped in someone's arms, shored up so he could breathe better.

"Daryl?" a soft voice called to him, and he turned to see Maggie Greene leaned in close to his left, water dripping from her hair, concerned eyes looking into his. "Hey, you back with us?"

Right, because he'd been by himself, with the walkers, and they'd chased him... He looked around and realized they were still on the pier, huddled in widening puddles of water, dark against the faded grey wood. There was a body lying behind where Maggie kneeled, twisted unnaturally the way it had fallen. He stiffened; he didn't remember killing any on the pier, was it really dead?

"Whoa, hey, it's okay," the person behind him spoke up. Glenn, trying to keep him calm, even as his own voice shook. "We took care of them."

Maggie moved in closer, blocking the corpse from his vision. "Are you hurt?" she asked. "Your arm?"

"Shoulder," Daryl responded, and coughed again, his chest aching. He barely recognized his own voice; had never sounded so hoarse in his life, and that was saying something. "Scraped m'leg pretty good too." He fingered the tear in his jeans, just above the knee. The wound was bleeding a bit still, but it didn't feel too bad, given everything else.

Maggie moved next to him, taking off the sopping button-up shirt she wore over a worn tank top. Daryl felt his face get warm. He could feel their eyes on him, and it made him uncomfortable. He wanted to get up and out of Glenn's embrace, but he wasn't sure he could just yet, so he let her take a moment to tie the shirt around his leg. The material made a sound like a zipper as she pulled it tight around the wet denim.

When she was done, he braced his right hand onto the damp wood to sit up fully. She reached for him again, before rethinking it and backing up a little. Glenn's arms hovered at his side, like he didn't know whether to help Daryl sit up or to pull him back down, but he didn't stop him either.

Daryl curled his left arm carefully into his chest, grunting at the pulse of pain it caused. The top of the joint felt hot, swollen probably. "Goddammit," he hissed. If he'd broken his shoulder during the damned apocalypse, then he was well and truly fucked.

He took a just moment to dwell on that before levering himself to his feet.

Glenn rushed up to stand at his side, putting a steadying hand on his back. Instinctively, Daryl pulled away, but the kid glared at him and moved in closer. His hand curled lightly around Daryl's upper arm, and it was pleasantly warm in an annoying way. He supposed that given what the two of them had just done for him, the concern was not entirely unreasonable, so he let the hand stay. For awhile.

* * *

The flies were godawful as they moved through the trees. Normally they'd be a nuisance anyway, but today they were an extra aggravation that set Maggie's teeth on edge.

She'd never spent much time around Daryl; they didn't really have much in common, and during much of his time at the farm he'd kept himself distant and isolated. She didn't know much about him, really, but today she was getting to see just how annoyingly _stubborn_ he was.

She really would have liked to yell at him about it, to tell him to just _stop_ and _sit down_ already, but she got the idea that he wouldn't listen to her; might only waste a little bit more of his energy yelling back at her.

He was up ahead, moving with a slow and painful determination as he led her and Glenn through the trees in the wrong damn direction. Given that he'd almost just died, she didn't expect to have to try to convince him to go back to camp and let her father check him out, but when they'd started to walk down the pier back toward shore and she'd leaned down to pick up his crossbow, he'd rasped that he had to get his arrows back.

There was a certain logic in that, sure: he only had so many, and they were useful tools in keeping them all alive. But he'd been shaking, looking pale and drawn when he said it. When Glenn told him it was fine, they could go back for them later, he hadn't even responded, just started walking.

Now they were trudging through the heavy, warm, woodsy air, soaking wet and being eaten alive by flies, walking at a snail's pace back along the path he'd taken when running from the walkers. The sun was blinking between the high tree branches, blinding Maggie off and on. Her axe and Daryl's crossbow were heavy weights in her hands, but when Glenn had offered to take one for her she'd shrugged him off.

Just ahead of them, Daryl stopped. A corpse lay on the ground next to him, with its head turned too far to one side and one of Daryl's arrows protruding from just below its eye. Daryl reached down with his good hand and grabbed the end of the arrow, twisting the head around a little bit further. He grunted, planted a damp shoe on its shoulder to hold it down, and hauled the arrow out with a squelch.

Maggie grimaced as he wiped some of the gore off the arrow onto his pant leg. He showed no expression when he did it, no sign of disgust or annoyance, even. At least he'd avoided the injured leg, and her shirt. When he was done, he handed Glenn the arrow without looking at him and started walking again.

Glenn stayed behind for a moment, holding the arrow aloft with his thumb and forefinger and wrinkling his nose at it. Maggie stepped past him, quickening her pace to catch up with Daryl and narrowly avoided walking face-first into a low-hanging branch. She swatted it aside. "How much farther are you plannin' on going?" she called ahead.

She didn't expect Daryl to answer – he'd been pretty consistent in ignoring them both for the past few minutes, no matter how much they hovered or asked him how he was doing – but he did respond this time. "Not much farther." He sounded distant, like he didn't really care either way for conversation and had answered on reflex. Like he'd checked out and left a voicemail, giving directions to where he'd gone.

This tone was disconcerting. From what Maggie understood of Daryl, he usually maintained a hot temper. His words were usually coloured with something; anger or distaste most of the time. He certainly didn't come across as a caring man, but he rarely seemed cold.

Maggie remembered Beth's empty gaze as she lay still and silent in bed back at the farm, wishing to die. She didn't feel the same desperate protectiveness over Daryl; she didn't know him, wasn't related to him, wasn't sure he even had the capacity to give up, and she'd only seen him need anybody once in all the time she'd known him. Even when he was stabbed, shot and bleeding, Maggie was sure he'd only let the others carry him because he hadn't been conscious enough to stop them.

But all the same, with the image of Beth in her mind and the sight of Daryl's back as he stepped through the trees ahead of her, his left arm held stiff at his side and the lake water slowly drying on his clothes, Maggie was starting to feel like she should be doing _something_ more than following along and carrying his crossbow as he wore himself down. She just didn't know what that something should be.

A fly landed on Maggie's bare arm. She tried to switch the axe into her right hand with the crossbow, but couldn't get a good grip. After a frustrating and itchy moment, she dropped the axe unceremoniously to the ground and slapped at her arm, but by that time the fly had eaten its fill and flown off. She gave the bite a good hard scratch, then reached down for the axe again. She thumped it off the ground to shake off the dirt and leaves, and straightened up.

When she looked ahead again, she saw that Glenn had stopped walking. He looked at her briefly, something anguished in his eyes, before looking away. She followed his gaze back to Daryl, who had slowed his own pace nearly to the point of stopping.

He was fixated on something ahead, but waved his hand back to the two of them in a 'stay behind me and keep quiet' kind of gesture.

Maggie huffed quietly, rolled her eyes and stepped up next to him.

He'd led them to a small break in the trees – where more bodies lay.

It took Maggie a moment to count them.

Just two – almost, probably. One mostly whole, lying half on the other. Half _in_ the other. It was like the well, all over again, only the gore had had nowhere to fall, had just –

Maggie looked away, took a deep breath, then took another. Something bumped at the crossbow in her hand. She startled with a short cry, but it was just Daryl, reaching with his right hand for his weapon. She gave it to him and he reached to pull back the string, a two-handed job. He hissed as he moved his injured shoulder and stopped, gazing at the crossbow for a moment like it had burned him.

He looked stricken, and a bit like he might faint.

Then he spoke. "She, uh," he cleared his throat and waved the crossbow toward the bodies. "She might come back." He put the crossbow down, gently, and reached for the axe instead. "Shouldn't let her come back."

Maggie looked at Daryl's outstretched, trembling hand, then back to the scene before them. There was an arrow jutting from the more intact body's head. She didn't think Daryl had seen it – of course he knew it was there, had put it there himself. But the arrow wasn't what he'd led them here for.

She gave him the axe.

Glenn stepped forward then, and reached for it too. "Here," he offered, "let me."

Daryl met his eyes and held them, and it was like he'd come back to his usual self, radiating anger and hostility. He took a sharp breath and tightened his grip on the axe. Maggie saw Glenn's eyes flick down, saw him look at Daryl's injured arm and then back up, steeling his gaze. Something passed between them, and Daryl made no move to hand the axe over, but Glenn reached out and took it anyway.

Maggie didn't watch him step into the small clearing and do the deed; it was enough that she could see it in her mind's eye. Glenn, raising the axe over his head, a small grimace twisting his mouth, and the sunlight filtering between the branches to fall across his arms and on the brim of his hat. Like this was a beautiful summer's day at a cabin on a lake. Like he was chopping wood for a camp fire, and the air smelled like charcoal and smoke and barbecue sauce, and no one had died or almost died – they'd just gone for a swim.

And when they woke up tomorrow morning they'd jump in their station wagon and go back to their permanent home.

**End.**

Written for the kinkmeme prompt: "Something happens and Daryl nearly drowns. Surely he can swim so maybe he's already injured or something."


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